The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence Part 61

"Mother! mother!" cried Frederick, in an agonising voice, throwing himself on Marie's bed, and enfolding her in his arms, as the doctor ran to them in dismay.

"Oh, come, my child, come!" murmured Marie, embracing her son in a last embrace with convulsive joy, "now it is for ever!"

These were the last words of the young mother.

Frederick and Marie breathed out their souls in a supreme embrace.

EPILOGUE.

We began this story supposing a tourist, going from the city of Pont Brillant to the castle of the same name, would pa.s.s the humble home of Marie Bastien.

We finish this story with a like supposition.

If this tourist had travelled from Pont Brillant to the castle eighteen months after the death of Frederick and Marie, he would have found nothing changed in the farm.

The same elegant simplicity reigned in this humble abode; the same wild flowers were carefully tended by old Andre; the same century-old grove shaded the verdant lawn through which the limpid brook wound its way.

But the tourist would not have seen without emotion, under the shade of the grove, and not far from the little murmuring cascade, a tombstone of white marble on which he could read the words: "Marie and Frederick Bastien."

Before this tomb, which was sheltered by a rustic porch, already covered with ivy and climbing flowers, was placed the little boat presented to Frederick at the time of the overflow, on which could be read the inscription: "The poor people of the valley to Frederick Bastien."

If the tourist had chanced to pa.s.s this grove at sunrise or at sunset, he would have seen a man tall of stature and clad in mourning, with hair as white as snow, although his face was young, approaching this tomb in religious meditation.

This man was David.

He had not failed in the mission entrusted to him by Marie.

Nothing was changed without or within the house. The chamber of the young mother, that of Frederick, and the library, filled with the uncompleted tasks left by the son of Madame Bastien, all remained as on the day of the death of the mother and child.

The chamber of Jacques Bastien was walled up.

David continued to inhabit the garret chamber which he occupied as preceptor. Marguerite was his only servant.

Doctor Dufour came every day to see David, near whom he wished to establish himself, when he could trust his patronage to a young physician newly arrived in Pont Brillant.

As a memorial to his young brother and to Frederick, David--that his grief might not be barren of result--transformed one of the barns on the farm into a schoolroom, and there, every day, he instructed the children of the neighbouring farmers. In order to a.s.sure the benefit of his instruction, the preceptor gave a small indemnity to the parents of the pupils, inasmuch as the children forced by the poverty of their families to go out to work could not avail themselves of public education.

We will suppose that our tourist, after having paused before the modest tomb of Marie and Frederick, would meet some inhabitant of the valley.

"My good man," the tourist might have said to him, "pray, whose is that tomb down there under those old oaks?"

"It is the tomb of the good saint of our country, monsieur."

"What is his name?"

"Frederick Bastien, monsieur, and his good angel of a mother is buried with him."

"You are weeping, my good man."

"Yes, monsieur, as all weep who knew that angel mother and her son."

"They were, then, much loved by the people of the country?"

"Wait, monsieur; do you see that tall fine castle down there?"

"The Castle of Pont Brillant?"

"The young marquis and his grandmother are richer than the king. Good year or bad year, they give a great deal of money to the poor, and yet, if the name of the young marquis is mentioned among the good people of the valley once, the names of Frederick Bastien and his mother are mentioned a hundred times."

"And why is that?"

"Because, instead of money, which they did not have, the mother gave the poor her kind heart, and the half of her bread, and the son, when it was necessary, his life to save the life of others, as I and mine can testify, without counting other families whom he rescued at the risk of his own life at the great overflow two years ago. So, you see, monsieur, the name of the good saint of the country will endure longer in the valley than the grand Castle of Pont Brillant. Castles crumble to the ground, while our children's children will learn from their fathers the name of Frederick Bastien."

INDOLENCE.

CHAPTER I.

A CHARMING IDLER.

Should there be any artist who desires to depict _dolce far niente_ in its most attractive guise, we think we might offer him as a model,--

Florence de Luceval, six months married, but not quite seventeen, a blonde with a skin of dazzling whiteness, cheeks rivalling the wild rose in hue, and a wealth of golden hair. Though tall and beautifully formed, the young lady is a trifle stout, but the slight superabundance of flesh is so admirably distributed that it only adds to her attractiveness.

Enveloped in a soft mull peignoir, profusely trimmed with lace, her att.i.tude is careless but graceful in the extreme, as, half reclining in a luxurious armchair, with her head a little to one side, and her dainty slippered feet crossed upon a big velvet cushion, she toys with a magnificent rose that is lying on her lap.

Thus luxuriously established before an open window that overlooks a beautiful garden, she gazes out through her half closed eyelids upon the charming play of light and shade produced by the golden sunbeams as they pierce the dense shrubbery that borders the walk. At the farther end of this shady path is a fountain where the water in one marble sh.e.l.l overflows into the larger one below; and the faint murmur of the distant fountain, the twittering of the birds, the soft humidity of the atmosphere, the clearness of the sky, and the balmy fragrance from several beds of heliotrope and huge clumps of j.a.panese honeysuckle seem to have plunged the fair young creature into a sort of ecstatic trance, in which body and mind are alike held captive by the same delightful lethargy.

While this incorrigible idler is thus yielding to the charm of her habitual indolence, an entirely different scene is going on in an adjoining room.

M. Alexandre de Luceval had just entered his wife's bedchamber. He was a young man about twenty-five years of age, and dark complexioned. Quick, nervous, and lithe in his movements, the natural petulance of his disposition manifested itself in his every gesture. He belonged, in fact, to that cla.s.s of individuals who are blessed, or afflicted, with a desire to be always on the go, and who are utterly unable to remain for more than a minute in one place, or without busying themselves about something or other. In short, he was a man who seemed to be not only in a dozen places at once, but to be engaged in solving two problems at the same time,--that of perpetual motion and ubiquity.

It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, and M. de Luceval, who had risen with the sun,--he never slept more than four or five hours,--had already traversed half of Paris, either on foot or on horseback. When he entered his wife's bedchamber, one of her women happened to be there, and her employer, in the quick, curt way which was habitual to him, exclaimed:

"Well, has madame returned? Is she dressed? Is she ready?"

"Madame la marquise has not been out this morning, monsieur," replied Mlle. Lise, the maid.

"What! Madame did not go out at eleven o'clock, as she intended?"